WHOOP Podcast - How Joey Gonzalez Brought In-Person Fitness Back to Life at Barry's

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

On this week’s episode, WHOOP Founder and CEO Will Ahmed is joined by Barry’s Global CEO, Joey Gonzalez. Joey has an incredible story that starts as a client of Barry’s and ends up in the C-suite. Barry’s is known as the original cardio and strength interval workout, revolutionized fitness, and began the boutique movement. In 2018, Gonzalez was named to Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business list and recently earned his OPM degree from Harvard Business School. Will and Joey discuss Joey’s background and upbringing (2:14), Joey’s first Barry’s class (7:10), what to expect in a Barry’s class (12:25), Joey’s rise through the organization to CEO (19:32), COVID’s impact on Barry’s (33:35), Barry’s today and the vision moving forward (43:58), and Joey’s fitness and nutrition routines (48:22).Resources:Joey's InstagramBarry's WebsiteFollow WHOOPwww.whoop.comTrial WHOOP for FreeInstagramXFacebookLinkedInFollow Will AhmedInstagramXLinkedInSupport the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

It's kind of like an out of body once in a lifetime experience to have your revenue shut off overnight. I lived in New York City. I had mortgaged my home, leveraged everything that I owned. And if Barry's Chelsea didn't work, I would have probably been like homeless and single. Hello, folks. Welcome back to the Whoop podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Whoop. And we're on a mission to unlock human performance. If you want to learn more about Whoop, check us out at Woop.com. Sign up for a free 30-day trial membership. Measure your sleep, recovery, exercise, more, and you are going to improve your performance. All right, on this week's episode, I'm joined by Barry's global CEO, Joey Gonzalez. Joey is an incredible story that starts as a client

of Barry's and ends up being the CEO. That's a rise that rivals anyone's. Barry's is known as the original cardio and strength interval workout that revolutionized fitness and began the boutique movement. Since becoming CEO in 2015, Joey has led Barry's to be a global brand. In 2018, Gonzalez was named to Fast Company's most creative people. He received the CEO Award of the Year from North Castle Partners. Gonzalez recently earned his OPM degree from Harvard Business School. Joey and I discussed Joey's journey to finding Barry's. He was acting actually in L.A. before he took his first Barry's class, the experience of a Barry's class and how to create a great boutique fitness experience. Joey's determination to go from client to

CEO. Managing the business during COVID. Spoiler. It was really, really hard. And what's next for Barry's and Joey's vision? If you have a question was answered on the podcast, email us, podcast whoop.com. Call us 508-443-4952. Here is my conversation with Barry's CEO, Joey Gonzalez. Okay, Joey, welcome to the WooP Podcast. Thank you. Thanks for having me. What an amazing story you've got, building Barry's the way it's grown. Yeah, it has been quite a journey. Let's go back just before Barry's even.

Like, where were you growing up? Where were you in life? So I grew up in the Midwest, a small town outside Chicago and Illinois. And my parents both immigrated to the U.S. my dad from Cuba through Spain. He went to medical school in Spain and then ended up practicing in Chicago. And my mom moved to Chicago directly from Naples, Italy. And so first generation American and very much felt that growing up because there was no one else like me in many ways. So, you know, just grew up in a very homogenous part of the country and always knew

and felt really different from the people around me. I say in a lot of ways, like my experiences as a child, helped sort of prepare me for a life filled with like challenge, rejection, et cetera. And when you learn how to handle adversity at such a young age, it really sort of gives you almost like you're a step ahead of people, you know, to a certain extent. And I loved performing arts growing up, which was also very different because most of the kids around me were in athletics and finally started to like go. out and audition for things when I was around 13 years old and ended up landing a professional show down to Chicago and got into SAG and started doing film, TV, musical theater, all

of that until 17 when I moved to L.A. to continue to pursue that and study film and theater at USC. Graduated SC, fell out of love to back being in love with Barry's and the rest is Barry's history. You mentioned growing up with some adversity, which I do think is a very helpful preview to building companies and the entrepreneurial spirit that goes with it. What kind of adversity did you face growing up? Well, I was, you know, I'm gay, Latino growing up, you know, surrounded by, you know, white, heterosexual people who, children, when something's different, I think their go-to is just to make fun of it, like if they don't understand it. And so whether it was people, you know, laughing and saying, you know, your dad cuts my grass or, you know, people,

you know, calling me derogatory terms around sexuality. I seem to be faced with adversely one way or another. It was coming at me in all different directions. And that, you know, was really challenging. But at the same time, I look around at individuals I've known my whole life who didn't have that experience and just feel, I don't know, like they haven't been as prepared for life and what it has to offer. All the surprises, all the adversity, right? When you start to sort of navigate that at a young age, I think it just breeds resilience. Yeah, it's definitely true that having, I think having gone through challenging periods, especially at a young age, can help form your resilience growing up.

And if I look at your kind of overall story, it looks like there was probably some challenging moments. Certainly you've described at a young age, but even I imagine that period of going from wanting to be, it sounds like an actor, right, at one point, to then choosing a path in fitness. Yeah. And there was kind of a lot in between there of, you know, different careers that I tried on. Start, stop. Yeah, you know, whether it was a real estate salesperson, I was a massage therapist at some point. I waited tables, obviously, like everyone else in Los Angeles. So I did, I tried a lot of different things on, but knew what it was like to love what I did and for work not to feel like work, because I grew up, you know, acting, doing what I loved. So just kept searching for something

that would fill my cup in the same way. And I discovered Barry's as a client. People call me CEO founder, but I always say I didn't start the business, but I certainly found it. It was a very sort of undiscovered hole in the wall that had all of the charm, an incredible sort of cult following it has today, but just in a micro way. What's the signal to you've got a job that's not the right job for you? Just not looking forward to work. Yeah. You know, not looking forward to Monday is different than not looking forward to work because

even if you love your work, sometimes the end of a weekend or vacation is tough. But I feel like once I'm there on Monday even, I'm just so excited to be there. So I think if you find yourself feeling like you're just not happy in your workspace. Would you get, would you kind of like you'd quickly realize that and move on? Yeah. Like you didn't linger. No, but I'm like a high risk, high reward guy. Cup bait.

Always. And I think most people in the world, like most of the people I grew up with are still living in the suburbs of, you know, Chicago doing what they're supposed to do. And that just was never. They never got off the path. Yeah. Describe the first time you did a Barry's workout. So I was actually terrified of Barry's for like a year and a half or two because I just heard how hard it was.

And this was back in the day when it actually was really hard. Now Barry's is structured in a way that like regardless of your athletic prowess, you can get through a class. Like we're very accommodating for different kind of levels of fitness. Back then it was like if you weren't sprinting at 10 miles an hour barrier, one of the coaches would come and like turn your treadmill. up to 10 miles an hour or faster. And so it was very challenging. If you weren't doing what he said, he kicked you out of the room. It was hard.

It was very hard. It took me time to kind of work up the courage to go there. And when I finally did, I was really surprised at how incredibly, like, receptive and warm both the staff, the trainer, and all the people around me. I think that was actually what really got me to buy in was like the people next to my left and right on the treadmills, helping me figure things. things out, just the camaraderie that existed, as well as the accountability, right? Because that's the thing about a Barry's classes. People compare it a lot to the workout you do at the

gym, because a lot of people will go to the gym and they'll do their cardio and they'll do their strength. But you're only willing to push yourself so hard, even if you have a personal trainer. But when you're at Berries and you have that trainer that's watching you and your speeds and your weights, and in addition, people to your left and right that are doing exactly the same thing. You just get competitive and, you know, it just gets you to a different level. So that's what got me hooked was really the people and the experience. And then just as I started to attend, I was never much of an athlete, but Barry's transitioned me into one. I became a runner, fell in love with weightlifting. And it was so rewarding for me to be able to see, to kind of track

like my speeds. My sprints were getting faster and the weights I picked, you know, on an arm's day were getting bigger and so it was great. So it kind of became the gateway for you to get fit in these other disciplines as well. For sure. I think when you practice that level of discipline in one thing, it most certainly like spills in across. You've now done a bunch of classes and you want like a job there. So I mean, yeah, my fantasy. I was taking two a day often. And so Barry obviously knew who I was. And one night we were all out at, like, a dinner. And he said, you know, Joey, do you want to start teaching? And I was like, yes. That's how very tough. Like an impersonation, by the way. Your acting just came to life. That was like a nice moment, by the way.

I've got more. And I was like absolutely, you know, would love that because it kind of, I was starting to fall in love with fitness. I missed performing. And that's one thing that is so, I think, necessary when you're a Barry's trainer is that you're able not only to put a well-programmed, efficient workout with smooth choreography that makes sense, but also that you can perform, right? You're a DJ. You're making jokes. You're making people feel a certain way.

You have to be evocative and you have to, like, know how to control a room and use your voice. And so all of the skills that I had kind of developed up until that point really lent them to me putting that mic on and teaching my first class. Were you nervous the first time? I was so nervous because it was, this was back in the day when not only was Barry's very hard, there was no training program for any employee. So you just jumped in.

And of course, I knew a guy, Rich Vaughn, who was my first trainer, Barry's, and he called me on a Friday night and was like, I have something tomorrow morning. I can't teach. And it was Saturday at 10 a.m. And anyone in fitness and boutique fitness knows that's the time. That's the day. Like Saturday 10 am sells out anywhere. You know what I mean? Like no matter who's teaching it. And so I was like, yeah, I raised my hand right away. I was like, I'll do it. You know, what do I do? He's like, oh, you'll be fine. Just play music and teach the class. So I showed up and pretty good at multitasking. So I think that helped me because with berries, there's you're sort of guiding people on treadmill through runs while, you You're guiding them through floor exercises, doing strength training, and you have to track time for both of them at the same time. I know you've done class before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's helpful to describe it. Yeah. And so being able to multitask, I think, helped me. And I loved music. And I think the background and performance, because I had done musical theater, et cetera, helped me sort of like figure out beat drops and when people should be sprinting, et cetera. So it all kind of came together.

And I'm sure for me, I felt like it was great. I'm sure if I took that class today, I'd be like, that was so. bad, but I thought it was a strong start. We're going to talk about the buildup to becoming CEO, but if you go into a class today to kind of test out, you know, how an instructor's doing, first of all, just describe the experience of Barry's, but then also touch upon what are the things that you look for that's a sign that, hey, this class is going well? So it's a great question because we actually have started something specifically over the

past two years called the Wow initiative, where, you know, as a great question. we've scaled the business and grown and we have so many more studios and trainers than we used to have, quality control is really top of mind for us. And really figuring out how to equip our trainers with not only the onboarding and the training, but the tools to be able to deliver what we call a wow class is the biggest priority for us as an organization. When I take class, what I'm looking for is obviously programming that makes sense. right? Are they adhering to the guardrails that we provide them? And so take, for example, like a Wednesday, chest back and abs. You're basically supposed to be doing 40% of chest,

40% of back, right, opposing muscle groups, and then 20% abs. So abs are, you know, half as much as the other two because we do abs pretty much every day, it varies. So that's just like one example of I'll be sort of clocking how much time I'm spending on each muscle group and then figure out by equation after class whether or not they follow. that programming. And there are many other examples I can give you. Like we're supposed to repeat patterns on the treadmill. They're just certain things, guardrails that are provided for them from a programming standpoint. So adherence to that is like one of the things I pay attention to. The second is musicality, which for me is like make it or break it, right? If I'm on the treadmill and I'm

sprinting while one song is ending and another's beginning, it like ruins it for me. That's like an example of I'm like, oh, God, what are you thinking? And I think it's probably, that's probably one of those things, like, for the, for the person who's doing the sprint, it makes for like a 20% worse experience, but they have trouble putting their finger on it. Whereas for you, it's clear. It's like, oh, my God. Like, it's the, the hair and the soup kind of moment for a chef, right?

Yep. That's right. And then the last piece after musicality is performance. So just engagement of the instructor with the class. By the way, that sometimes, it doesn't for me, but for some people, that trumps all. If you have a relationship with the, if you have a really engaging instructors, we've had instructors who are so successful at Barry's who excel in that third piece but can't quite nail the first and second. And it's just because people will forgive someone that they adore

and love, you know, so that part is, can't really overestimate how important it is. From a control standpoint, how much is the instructor driving every moment of the class? like when the music changes beats and all these things versus a lot of this is just pre-programmed and they're trying to keep it on the rails no nothing's pre-programmed uh we do have like a 30 60 90 onboarding i think it's like first 50 class or 60 days i forget exactly what the rule is where they're teaching classes from a bank but that's just for like onboarding purposes once you're barry's instructor, it's 100% original content. So when you step into a class at 9 a.m. and you take a button legs class at 9 a.m. If you were to stay and do a double and take the 1015, completely

different playlist, all different exercises. Instead of, you know, two 12 minute rounds, you might do like three, seven minute rounds. So it just depends on who you're taking essentially. And they have complete creative control over their class. Well, you take classes from other types of companies like Orange Theory or fill in the blank these different types of studios. Like, is there any aspect of that for you as inspiration or not? Like, I buy a ton of tech products. I'm constantly looking at little things that companies do and deciding whether it's right for us or not. So innovation is one of our values, and we most definitely harness that. I don't think it has a huge impact on the final product that we're offering because we very

rarely change, like, as an example, the days of the week. Our clients love that they know what day to expect no matter where they are in the world, right? So we've had this same sort of structure in place for, I think seven years now. we've had the same days of the week. So Barry's on a Tuesday, wherever you go is Barry's on a Tuesday. That's right, is button likes. But what we do innovate is kind of like our training systems, the tools that we provide,

that's I think where we spend most of our time innovating. We've always been a sort of back-to-basics workout routine. Like you know what you're going to get. It's almost like having a personal trainer, but it's half the cost and it's in a group setting. And that's Berries. There had been so many trends over the course of my career. I've been doing this now 20 years this year. They've been working out in the heat, working out in the cold, working out only your butt for an hour. There have been so many trends that have come and gone that if I had adopted all of those, I don't know where we'd be today. And that's not to say we wouldn't

be even better than where we are. But I think it's core to who we are to just be back to basics and give people exactly what they know they're going to get. Well, the idea of not following trends is a brilliant observation or strategy. I mean, Woop wouldn't be here today if we tried to mimic a lot of what had happened in the wearables industry because most of the wearables industry has gone away and it's just consolidated around very few players. So I definitely respect this sort of notion of what makes Barry's Barry's is sort of that core essence and maybe different from what other folks are doing.

That's certainly how I've tried to build whoop. Yeah. No, that's smart. And that's actually a great example of like wearables, right? So Orange Theory came along and started, that's like an integrated part of the experience, right? It's that heart rate monitor. And so there was pressure on us, I guess, to start to think about doing that as well. But our approach was really like, we'd rather partner with great brands like yours and

give our clients who want that experience, the opportunity to have that experience in a really premium way, then all of a sudden start to integrate, like, hardware into the workout. Do you know what I'm saying? Totally. We know what we're good at. And it is worth saying we are now partners. So, you know, you can find Barry's within the Woop app. If you sign up for Woop through Barry's, you get a discount and all sorts of special perks.

And we did that because we really like the clientele that you all have as a business. And we'd also seen people logging what probably was Barry. but just as a different activity type. And we always want to create the most, I think, comprehensive experience for our members. That's awesome. Well, it's been great. Yeah.

So 2004, you're in the instructor phase. Talk a little bit about the progression from there. Yeah. So, you know, my, I've had to work really hard, which unfortunately is something that I think is going out of style these days. I know. I can talk about that. It's very disappointing to see, but I was given when I started as an instructor, despite my

level of engagement and how excited I was and the quality of product I think that I was able to deliver right away, I was giving really bad classes. And I think there were probably around most of the classes I was given had like around five to eight people that were showing up on average, which for me meant $25 for the hour. And so I was just, told by my managers, like, listen, if you build it, like, you'll make more, right? Because we are, we're able to earn a bonus on attendance. And so I hustled so hard. And within three, maybe four months, those classes were filled. And I had like, you know, 32 people. It was selling out. And then I was able to like, you know, earn more classes. And, you know, certainly they're out. What did you do in that phase to get more

people to come to the classes. I was, and this was before social media, which has made, in my opinion, has made it a lot easier to connect with people. I would like ask everybody to put, you know, I'd keep an email list. Yeah, right. And I'd be like, can you give me your email? Like, write it down with this pen and paper. And I would email people and I would invite them, like, I'd host brunches on Sunday at the

Abbey and just like invite all my clients to hang out. and would just really try to like foster community and then also be genuinely invested in people like know who they are and their kids are and who their dog is in the lobby you know like really pay attention um was that a phase of your life in which you had a bunch of other things going on or it was all bears so i i was doing i was working at a hospitality uh in a hotel and corporate sales at the time. And I kept that job. I can't remember. It was probably like for six to 12 months while I was an instructor, maybe like six months. Then I heard the GM role was opening up. And so I really wanted to interview for it. And it took the previous

GM time to leave. And so I went out and got a job at, you know, again, just an example of how I was like hustling at Gold's gym, Hollywood, which is the worst job in my life. And I've had some bad jobs. And this was just like really challenging. You are just, you know, they teach you to turn on and burn them and just sign people up and hopefully don't show up. And, you know, it just was like very aggressive sales environment. Yeah. I was out at like run in Canyon handing out like free passes.

So I just was able to get some experience under my belt so that when the job became available, I could say like, look, I've been working sales at golds, blah, I have a lot to offer for this role. And it ended up working. You know, I was there probably like three months before she finally left. And when I interviewed the job, I showed up with, you know, a list of ideas of how Berries could really sort of augment and expand the sales. Like they didn't even have memberships at the time. And so me, someone who was going twice a day was like, it'd be really great to reward frequency by giving membership.

So implemented a lot of new ideas as I sort of took on the management role. Did you go into that GM role being like, I'm definitely getting this? Like, what was your mindset? Yeah, I think so. I felt pretty confident about it. I think for me it was like, I'm always, I think because of my decade of acting, I'm always cautiously optimistic. You know what I mean?

Like, I show up hoping for the best, but also prepared for the worst. So if I feel like in that time when I was interviewing, I probably thought, if I don't get it now, I'll get it later, you know, like I, I'm an eternal optimist as well. So if I had gotten a call that I didn't get it, I would have kept being a trainer and kept, you know, trying to become a manager. And eventually you would have gotten the management role. Yeah. Yeah, I find these stories around, you know, executive growth or entrepreneurship. It's like they sort of have two flavors. One is like the one step at a time heads down, oh, wow, look where I woke up, like, after all these steps. And the other's like,

no, I'm going to be CEO of this one day, and I'm just going to have to drive towards that. And it feels like you were a little bit more of the former, but correct me if I'm wrong. A hundred percent. Like, you didn't, you didn't, CEO was never, it wasn't like, yeah, never even a thought. Right. Like, I was, that was not something I was after. But I'm not title driven. So I just really wanted to be a partner. Like, I wanted to invest. I had money from acting and had invested in some real estate. And so I wanted to invest what I could in this business and be an equity participant. That to me was the goal. And I set that goal by the time I was 30. I was supposed to achieve it and I didn't. But that's a good ambitious goal too.

Yeah. Like you kept creating these high marks for yourself. And I love the story about Gold's gym. I mean, that strikes is, it must have been hard for you. Like, you strike me to someone who's pretty high integrity when it comes to health and fitness. I was not very good at it. But also, there's a lack of a line that too, right, of like how you feel health and fitness should be done and then what you're trying to sell to someone, which is churn and burn. Completely and berries is the opposite, right? Like, we need our people to keep showing up.

Like, we spend so much time thinking about how to keep our clients engaged and retaining them. So you become general manager. How long does that last? That happened probably like 2005, and immediately I start, like, so I have friends visiting me from Chicago, from other cities, from other countries even. And obviously, every time they come, we go to Berries. And this is when Facebook starts to become popular. And all I kept hearing from everyone was that this would work where I live.

And the original John and Rachel Mumford were the investors in Barry's. So that was sort of the trio, the original threesome. And I would ask them over and over again, like, can I invest? Like, I'll, I'm not asking for sweat equity. I will invest everything I have. I'll move around to different parts of the country and I'll prove the portability of this service. And it was just a no time and time again. It was kind of more like, like, we'll think about it.

And then I never got an answer. And then finally, 2008, I just. gave them an ultimatum. And I was like, it's been, you know, over three years that I've been working here. I'm either going to do this with you or without, but I'd much rather do it with you. And that was sort of what immediately got them to say, like, okay? That's a powerful kind of moment in time when you look back on it that way. I mean, what made you say it's now or never in 2008? It was really instinctually just like you can't, I can't expect them. and this answer to change.

And so, to be honest with you, I was, like, prepared to leave that day. Yeah, right. Because I went into the meeting thinking it was going to be a, we'll think about it again, and I was going to quit. And then you were going to create your own version of it. I already, I had the whole business plan, the brand, everything. Yeah. What was the brand?

It was called Raw, running in weights. There you go. That's pretty good name, too. I know. I think so. Yeah. I like that. I don't think I've ever shared about it.

Well, breaking news here. Yeah, hopefully you trademarked it. I don't think you need to. It's available. I think Paris is fine. Yeah, I think we're doing okay. You're doing okay. So, okay, so that's like 2008.

It's another seven years until your CEO. So what's happening along the way? So 2009, I opened my first studio where I was sort of an equity participant in San Diego. Then I moved across the country to continue to do that in New York. I remember thinking I'd be back to L.A. in like six months. the same way I was in San Diego and I ended up being there five years because the business, that's when Barry's like truly took off. Barry's Chelsea was a completely different model than anything we'd ever seen before. And I had a lot of input into how we sort of changed

the experience, the build out, everything. We added locker rooms and showers. We'd never had that before. We had no premium amenities partners. We added fuel bar and my husband and I, he's a chef, owns restaurants in Southern California and very healthy chef. And so we came up with these, like, you know, high protein, non-dairy shakes that were. That's awesome. Amazing. And our clients love them. And so just changed the whole experience in Chelsea. And I remember we had a, I thought the business would be paid back in three months. And it was paid back in like, or sorry, in three years. And it was paid back in seven months. And so by year, by month three, we were making what we thought we'd make in year three. So huge success. And so I opened, you know,

Tribeca and NoHo and the Hamptons and, you know, continue to sort of expand that business. In 2008 before this expansion, how many studios were there? Two. Okay. So just West Follywood and then there was a small one in Sherman Oaks. So then fast forward two or three years and how many? Well, in 2008, there were two. And then I'd say by 2013, we were around like 10, probably. So you got moving.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. And that's when started to sort of, so Barry's important to say, we haven't even talked about this, but Barry's was the original. He started the company in 1998 when boutique fitness didn't exist, right? So it was relatively easy for us to open markets. The challenge was always like, how do you explain the value to a consumer? Because they're used to paying $99 down the street at the gym for a month.

And now we're asking them to pay at the time 20, right, 25, whatever it might have been, per class. That was the challenging part. But there was no competition, which made it easy. So you have this whole segment of the population that was engaged with this type of experience. and you were the only option. Fast forward to 2012, very crowded landscape. So soul cycles popped up, flywheels popped up. You know, there's so many different concepts all around town.

It was around that time that I started to talk to my partners about raising money through private equity because up until then, we had grown organically. We had some like American Express merchant loans. But other than that, like, you know, it was all just reinvesting what we made. and got them on board, I think probably it took a few weeks, but like I think they were in a later stage of life as well. So being able to monetize was like very attractive idea for them. So we all kind of aligned and went through the whole process and ended up picking Northcastle partners. And that deal was done in 2015. And part of Northcastle's request was that I stepped

into the global CEO role. But to be honest with you, I had really been doing that. You've been doing that job. Change at all day to day. So we did town halls where we went around to different cities introducing me as the CEO. And people were like, I thought you were the CEO. They had no idea. Not much changed for me, but what's the change from the vantage point of taking on capital?

I think a lot of entrepreneurs sometimes wonder, should I bootstrap this for a while? Should I raise capital? Had it a change for you with capital partners? So full transparency, I think I have a unique private equity story. My partners are some of my closest friends. Like they've become part of my family and have been so supportive in the hardest of times and always put like culture before anything else. So I've had a really positive experience.

They also were brought to the table a level of professionalism and experience. I didn't have in my former partners. Again, my partners were incredibly creative and founded this amazing thing, right? But it's different. The sort of like qualities you have as a founder, getting a business off the ground, and what makes you successful doing that

is very different than what helps you scale a business to 50 units, as you know. Yeah. So it was great to have like, I think partners that could really add value and helped me grow HQ, which up until that point I didn't have. So now all of a sudden I had, you know, had a marketing. I had, it just had a real estate.

It was kind of unbelievable. Yeah, I bet. What's up, folks, if you are enjoying this podcast, or if you care about health, performance, fitness, you may really enjoy getting a whoop. That's right. You can check out whoop at whoop.com. It measures everything around sleep, recovery, strain,

and you can now sign up for free for 30 days. So you'll literally get the high performance wearable in the mail for free. You get to try it for 30 days to see whether you want to be a member. And that is just at whoop.com. Back to the guests. So then let's fast forward to say 2000 and end of 2019. How big is Barry's at that stage? How many studios?

Oh, gosh. 2019. We were probably around 50 to 60 studios total. Well, the lead in here is, okay, COVID. Yeah. Like, talk about hard times. I can't think of harder times than for fitness studios and gyms. Yeah, COVID was, I think, obviously, the hardest time of my professional life. I should say, that like I lived in New York City, I had mortgaged my home, leveraged everything that I owned, and if Barry's Chelsea didn't work, I would have probably been like homeless and single, you know?

Yeah, I had risked everything. And I was working probably 20-hour days, and it still didn't even touch going. like how challenging COVID was for me personally. It, you know, it was kind of like an out of body once in a lifetime experience to have your revenue shut off overnight. Typically, that's as a result of like, you know, bad decision making or a recession or something that you see coming at least. this was just a total blind side for us well and then in scenario planning maybe you'll look at oh

you know classes are going to be down 20% what would that do to our business and our exposure oh classes are up 20% what is it like you know it's scenario plan zero there was no no business case study there's no historical precedent of zero no and in fact hbs ended up writing a case study on berries through covid oh cool probably just to memorialize like what companies like this had to do do, right? Because it's unprecedented. And I actually remember my mom, my parents used to always say that our generation was just so spoiled and, you know, life was so easy and wonderful and we have no idea what it was like when there were wars and et cetera. And I remember one day she said to me, she's like, Joey. Let's go. Let's go. She's like,

We've never been to anything like this. I'm so sorry. And I was like, yeah? And she's like, I don't even know what you're going to do. You know, it's just like such a dismal conversation. But obviously nice to have that empathy. And speaking of empathy, I think that there was like a life changing moment for me personally because what was happening was happening, right?

There was nothing I could do to change it. But the way that I kind of perceive the world and my thought world, that is under my control. And I was just in so much pain, you know, like going from 1,400 employees to 300, like there's just a lot of trauma in that, especially if you're like an empathetic person. And I remember listening to a meditation that challenged, unrelated to what I was going through, but just fell into my lap at the right time, challenged me to not be empathetic but to be compassion instead, compassionate instead. It was on leadership.

And it just, like, clicked for me. I remember the meditation had you, like, picture driving path. An animal that had been hit by a car and was dying. And put yourself in the body of that animal and feel the pain and blah, and you go through this whole, like, experience, meditating. And then they had you redo it being compassionate, where you're just looking at it saying, I feel bad for that animal. And that really helped me get through the next, like, year of my life.

Because even though I still felt everything, it was at, at a different level. Do you know what I'm saying? Oh, totally. I mean, there's a huge difference between acknowledging that someone's dealing with pain and absorbing that pain yourself. We're trying to feel it for them. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I can't imagine how many painful conversations there were going from 1,400 to 300 people. Yeah. And just so many decisions, you know, where you just don't know if you're doing the right thing. And you'll never know. You know, I still don't know, but you just allow for us, it was really like, we're a very mission, vision, values driven company. And so for us, that was like what we always had on the table as we

were sort of coming together as a leadership team and making decisions. What were a few memories you have of that period? Like, what was the first moment? You're like, oh, wait, like, this is like, we're going to shut down. You know, for me, we just kept hearing it would be two weeks. And I told you earlier, I'm an eternal optimist. So for me, I remember, pulling the trigger on shutting all the studios down. We did it before there were mandates just because we wanted to be responsible and do the right thing. And I remember thinking like it's So this is probably early April 2020? Yeah. Okay. Maybe even, I think it was in March even. Yeah. I think I thought like it would definitely be two weeks, maybe less. You know what I mean?

That optimism. So that was like the first thought in my head. Like this is going to be okay. Everything will be all right. Like we'll be back to normal. Yeah. We weren't. But again, you know, I think all of my sort of lived experiences as a child knowing how to process adversity, also not like anchoring myself in because then you think about like all that you've accomplished and achieved, you know, we haven't even talked about like personal wealth, right? So like here I was thinking I had built this company that was had a certain value and then overnight it's worth nothing. in fact it's just piling on debt right just to stay in existence and that was another great

lesson for me is that like I've never anchored myself in that and so that wasn't as traumatizing for me as a lot of people right well that's a really good observation as an entrepreneur or a leader like I know for me in the early days of building whoop I I really assigned my value as like a human being to the success of the company. And if Woop was having a good day, I was having a good day, if Woop was having a bad day, I was having a bad day. If Woop was failing, I was failing. And it's a super unhealthy mindset for building a business.

And it's also not true. Like, to your point about, I mean, Barry's during COVID is one of the great examples of it not being true. You know, you shutting down all these studios had nothing to do with how you were running Barry's, right? And so it sounds like you would, accumulated some resilience and wealth of knowledge over the course of building the company or your youth that put you in a position to be able to manage that moment. But I think for a lot of

people who tie their professional success up with their own self-identity, when a moment like that happens, it tears you down. Yeah, for sure. So coming out of COVID then, did all of a sudden that just feel like, wow, I had been running with like a hundred pound backpack and now the winds in my back. Yeah, I wish there was like a moment where it felt like I threw that backpack off, but there wasn't. There were, I think a lot of like mini celebrations where like business would really start to spike again and then all of a sudden Delta, right?

And then like attendance would be down dramatically. and then business would start to pick up again and then Omicron was it? Yeah, was next. And so it just felt like even today like I'm looking over my shoulder, you know, and we've been like up into the right since I'd say like end of 22, early 23. Or there is this funny element of like all the industries that were thought to be dead forever during COVID are now having these huge renaissance. Like the cruise industry is like crushing. Do you know, do you remember? remember when people said, like, there'll never be a cruise again. I do. You know, and, and it was kind of easy to believe in, in the darkest moments of COVID, like, yeah, why would anyone go on

a cruise? But I feel like, you know, fitness experiences are under that umbrella of like, for sure. Yeah, I don't want to spend my whole life in my home. I don't want to work from home and then work out at home. And then, you know, I want to get out and experience something. And if I go to this class and it's high energy and I've got a great instructor and I'm around other people, it's endorphins, like da-da-da-da-da. Yeah. Yeah, I think every piece of press I did during COVID started with some journalist asking if I thought group fitness was over forever.

And it always felt like such a myopic question because I always had those insane. It's just like so, what do you? Are you serious? I remember someone saying to me that because I signed a huge lease in the dead of COVID, the building that we're recording this in. And this was a time when the whole. tech industry was like, oh, we're going to be on Zoom forever. It's so great. Like, we're going to save all this money. And I was like, that is not an environment. I want to

build a business in. Like, that's just not the life I plan to live in. And I knew it had gotten to a crazy echo chamber because there was an investor of ours who said, you know, I actually think that human beings are going to be done shaking hands. And it really crystallized for me just how there was a meaningful percentage of society that thought that like we were just going to change as humans like forever. And I remember that comment like it was yesterday because I thought that was one of the craziest comments I'd ever heard. And this was like a really brilliant person. Yeah. A lot of people were saying that. Yeah. So anyway, I mean, it feels good to be on the other side of it and be talking people and, you know, kissing people in the cheek and whatnot. Yeah.

But doing human things. So today, Barry's over 80 studios, how many countries now? 15 now. Do you find yourself just on a plane all the time, or do you get to soak it up? I travel a lot. I'm probably gone 40% of the time. I probably travel like a week and a half, at least a month. But I love it.

You know, people think because I've been doing this so long that I'm like ready to do something else, but I love it so much. It's like my firstborn, you know, I'm still so connected to, I still teach classes when I travel. I'm still, you know, very involved in like finding recruiting talent, interviewing talent, and, you know, taking classes. And I, it's definitely still fills my copy. Here's some fun stats just on, on Barry's. I'm curious of, this will resonate for you. So average heart rate 133 beats per minute, your zone distribution, zone one, so that would be like 50 to 60 percent of your max heart rate and so forth upwards here. So 12 percent people spend in zone one, 23 percent zone two, 27 percent zone three,

24% in Zone 4 and 8% Zone 5. So, you know, you're spending like 35% of your time in Zone 4 and 5. That's pretty intense. And then not to mention you're probably the times that were maybe you're dropping into our lower heart rate zone. It might be when you're doing the weights, for example. Yeah, probably. Is that, that's from our clients? This is from Woop data.

Got it. Because we have a lot of, we have, let's see, 1.8. 8% of our members have logged a Barry's activity this year. Cool. Yeah. That's super interesting. It's the fourth highest activity in terms of time spent in zone five. Wow.

And zone five is what heart rate? That's 90 to 100% of your max. Okay. But it's all out. Like if you're at 90% of your max heart rate, like you're really straining. Yeah. So that's pretty interesting. Yeah.

What's next for you? like how do you think about the next steps in building there is the goal to have 800 studios is it more about the experience just being pristine like yeah I think so right now we have three different products in market we have our traditional run lift class which is a combination of interval running with the strength training piece we also launched something about 10 or 11 years ago called Lyft, which doesn't have any cardio. It's 50 straight minutes of strength training. And our clients who either do cardio elsewhere or have injuries, right, love Lyft.

And we have, I think, 15 of those studios globally. And it's actually our number one utilized product in market because it's lower capacity. So they sell out really quickly. And then the last concept we have is ride lift, which is similar to our original concept. We just replace the treadmills with bikes. So it's like a low-impact alternative. And that's the most recent. We just opened Chelsea, like a year and a half ago.

We just opened West Hollywood. So when we think about, I think, the future of berries, there's really a lot of white space that exists for our, you know, original concept in new markets. As example, like just signed Charleston, Salt Lake City. We're looking at markets like Columbus, Ohio. So continuing to expand that concept into new markets, as well as infilling in other markets where we already exist.

So we just opened Santa Monica, we're opening Studio City, both in Los Angeles, just signed a lease for Williamsburg, Hoboken. So still a lot of like continued growth in cities, dense urban markets where we already exist. And then separately, there's this kind of white space story for the other two modalities, which are, I think, really gaining in popularity and attention. Amazing. Yeah. I think the goal is to have 200 of the original. concept within the next like five years to have 200 of those in the U.S.

And we're still kind of like thinking through the growth strategy for the other two. Fascinating. What's your fitness routine? You look like a super fit guy. So I do Barry's four or five times a week and it's really my cardio. So my whoop has been helping a lot because I try to keep my heart rate between a certain range. Okay, good. I'll have my phone open and watch my heart rate as I do my car.

cardio. And then I weightlift six days a week. Okay. In addition to the Barry's class. Yep. You kind of just do weightlifting alone, know what you're going to do, or do you have a trainer? I actually work with a bodybuilding coach who mostly lays out nutrition for me, but also will send like fun ways to kind of switch up the workout routine as well. What role does nutrition play in bodybuilding? Oh my God, it's huge. It's massive. The amount of protein that I have to ingest on a daily level is crazy.

And protein's actually really hard to find. So when you're stuck at the airport and you didn't like prepack your food or meals, it's always hard. You know, you have to grab for like the turkey jerky that has like 200 milligrams of sodium or whatnot. But yeah, it plays a huge role. And if you change the way you eat. and keep your workout the same, you'll see crazy results. Huge results. People always say, you know, there's like a saying nutrition's 90% of it.

I don't agree with that. Like, I think it depends on what your goal is, right? But if you're looking to physique build and have a great athletic body, the performance piece is key. You have to do it. But the fuel is like what helps you get there, you know? And you mentioned you're on whoop now. like what have you gotten out of the product yeah for me it's mostly tracking uh my heart rate

while i'm doing cardio because that was always like i would try to hold on to the bars of the forward way and like you know step off the treadmill during recoveries and make sure i wasn't going over like 160 165 so that's been like i think the best part of it i also love tracking sleep and figuring out like because i think it's always a surprise to learn like they're just some nights where you sleep, you think you sleep for like nine hours and then you look at your data and you're like, oh, wow, I actually didn't have a good night's sleep, right? And vice versa. So that's always fascinating. It is kind of the black box of everyone's lives. Well, this has been terrific, Joey. I mean, I'm very excited for you and your career and what

you've built and congratulations. And at Woop, we're thrilled to be partners with you all at Barry's. We are as well. Thank you so much. And congrats on everything. you to Joey for joining me on the show today and sharing his incredible story. We're thrilled to be in partnership with Barry's. You can do Barry's in the Woop app. If you enjoy this episode of the podcast, please leave a rating or review. Please subscribe to the WOOP podcast. You can check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. If you have a question you want to see answered, email us, podcast at Woop.com. Call us 508-443-4952. If you're thinking about joining Woop, you can visit Woop. Sign up for a free 30-day trial membership.

your sleep, recovery, strain, and more. New members can use the code will W-I-L get a $60 credit on W-W-P accessories when you enter that code at checkout. All right, that's a wrap, folks. Thank you all for listening. We'll catch you next week on the WOOP podcast. Stay healthy and stay in the green.